By Nick Engelfried
When a wild cougar was spotted in the mid-sized town of Bellingham, WA, earlier this year, it served as a reminder of how vibrant wild animal populations can persist in close proximity to people. However, the news also put many local residents on edge. The young male cougar hadn’t behaved aggressively toward people and showed no sign of being an imminent threat to human life. Still, some neighbors called for the animal’s removal. What happened next was a preventable tragedy.

One day in late February, the cougar exercised its natural hunting instinct by preying on a small dog. The dog’s owners reacted quickly, chasing after the cougar until it dropped the small canine. The pet recovered from the ordeal despite sustaining injuries–but the cougar was not so lucky. Shortly after the attack, the cat was hunted down and killed by state Fish and Wildlife officials. The incident underscores how wild animals who wander into towns and urban areas too often pay the ultimate price for practicing natural behaviors.

As human populations expand and wild areas shrink, people and our pets and livestock are inevitably brought into more frequent contact with wild animals of all sorts. Meanwhile, a growing awareness of the mental health benefits of green space has inspired urban planners to bring neighborhoods and woods into closer contact than ever before. This is beneficial for both people and the recovery of wild landscapes. Yet, while many urban residents value the chance to encounter wildlife close to home, conflicts arise when potentially dangerous animals aren’t given the space they need.

Bellingham’s experience with cougars is typical of how wild animal encounters too frequently play out. The town of over 90,000 people is situated between Washington’s Puget Sound and the forested Chuckanut Mountains. Cougars, coyotes, and even black bears can and do wander into Bellingham’s urban neighborhoods on occasion, often lured by food humans provide either inadvertently or on purpose. It’s a tragedy that after learning to feel safe in urban landscapes, these predators may end up being killed.

Two factors–access to food and habitat–lead wildlife to venture into urban areas. Animals tend to see greenspaces, stream corridors, and even city parks as natural extensions of the forests and woods they call home. Predators as big as bears and cougars may pass through neighborhoods under cover of darkness without most of the human inhabitants even noticing their presence. However, when habitat is combined with food sources that bring predators into contact with people and our domestic animals, the chances of dangerous encounters go up dramatically.

What constitutes food for wild animals will of course vary across different species. Unprotected garbage dumpsters provide a temptation black bears can’t resist, while wolves occasionally prey on livestock when preventive steps aren’t taken. For cougars, urban deer are the attraction that most often brings them into yards and neighborhoods.

Like other wild animals, deer wander into town to utilize the habitat parks and natural areas provide, and they may even learn to graze in urban lawns. Deer pose no danger to people unless they are directly threatened–but co-existing with the predators who follow them requires more thoughtfulness. Deer are the most important food species for wild cougars, who naturally begin to show up where their prey go. One of the best ways to prevent a dangerous situation is to avoid unnecessarily encouraging deer to congregate near human dwellings. This means resisting the urge to feed them.

While offering food to large wild animals is often tempting, it’s almost never a good idea, and it puts both animals and people in danger. Grains, vegetables, and other human foods aren’t part of a deer’s natural diet, and ingesting them can harm their digestive systems. Feeding deer also gives them a reason to linger in gardens, backyards, and other places where their natural predators may soon follow.

A cougar who grows accustomed to hunting deer in urban areas may eventually branch out to pursuing other prey, like pets. Pets left unattended can draw a cougar into backyards, endangering both animals as the predator becomes habituated to the setting. In rare cases, cougars who get used to being around humans can pose a danger to people, especially small children.

Avoiding dangerous wildlife encounters means remembering that while predators like bears and cougars very rarely attack people unprovoked, they are powerful wild animals who deserve our healthy respect. Minimizing food temptations for predators should be a priority. This requires safely and securely disposing of garbage, refusing to feed deer, and making sure pets stay indoors or are closely supervised when a predator may be around. When these precautions are taken and wild animals are given the physical space they need, it’s possible for people and predators to exist in the same space without significant conflict.

Coexistence also means remembering wild animals have a right to share the landscape with us, and changing our behavior to account for their presence. It’s tempting to think cougars, bears, or wolves should be captured and removed from urban or rural landscapes where they pose a potential threat to people and livestock. However, even “humane” capture and release programs rarely work well in practice. A wild animal released hundreds of miles from its home will likely find itself in territory already claimed by another of its species, and will struggle to establish a new territory of its own.

Finally, animals who wander into contact with people are just following their instincts–and if the underlying factors that drew them into urban areas aren’t dealt with, removing them will likely just result in another taking their place. The solution to human-wildlife conflict isn’t lethal removal or capturing predators and releasing them far away. It’s for us as humans to learn to share space with our wild neighbors.

While co-existing with wildlife requires care and caution, the rewards are great for both people and wildlife. Local ecosystems are healthier with predators in the landscape, and there are few things more exciting than encountering a wild animal close to home. Sharing our urban spaces with animals is not only possible, but necessary–and it leads to a world where nature and humans can live together in harmony.

Photo credit: Pixabay

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Nick Engelfried Writes About Animals, the Environment, and Conservation for the ForceChange network